Mission 1: Wisdom to Thrive - Part 3

<<< PREVIOUS PART

Part 3: We Can't Bring WHAT Now...!?

By the night of the next new moon, Amy and Ryoshi had travelled along with everyone else who bravely volunteered to undergo the trial all the way to the site of the Labyrinth in Artiphron, with Pausanius to guide them. Amy thought that they would be on the mainland of Artiphron itself, but noooo, it had to be on some island off the coast. Man, they really did like keeping this place isolated.

Speaking of isolated, Amy was surprised (not at the fact that Pausanius chose this) that she and Ryoshi were the first group to go, and everyone else had to wait alongside the coast next to the boat they had all come in on. She wasn’t sure why this was, but figured that maybe the Labyrinth’s magic was that restrictive or something. The fact that there was no moon out tonight didn’t help ease her nerves, though.

In the center of the island, surrounded by a thick forest that covered most of the landmass, the Labyrinth's walls seemed to go up forever into the sky, and even Amy couldn't see where it ended. But then again, considering how she was the shortest in the group, it didn't surprise her. Embedded within the wall was a sort of small room containing three pedestals with a dagger, rope, and quill on them, respectively, and they all seemed to faintly glow with a sort of magical power. The room was covered with a translucent, magical-looking aura of sorts.

The shiny Absol ruler then turned to them. "Ah, excellent. We have arrived. The Labyrinth is not a place to take lightly, so do not go in thinking this will be simple. The maze is ever changing, so if you fall it is unlikely we will ever find you again. Your only hope is reaching the center where the beast called Minotauros lives. There you must defeat the final challenge while avoiding him and using his strength to your advantage."

Amy listened carefully to his explanation; though for some, it might have been a repetition of what King Alaric already told them, for her, such reiteration could mean life or death.

"Before entering you must also choose between a dagger, a rope and a quill. These are the only items you may bring with you.” He gestured to the items within the room. “If you attempt to enter the maze with another item, it will not let you in. And by this, I am strict. NOTHING ELSE." He especially seemed to glare at Ryoshi's sword.

At this, Amy shivered. "Wait...what about our accessories? Do those count as items, too?" Suddenly, she was starting to realize that this might have been another reason why they had to go separately…at night.

Pausanius then shrugged, though his fleeting grin wasn't lost on her. "You could say that...just to ensure that the Labyrinth does let you in..."

"Armor...too?" Ryoshi's voice cracked; an unusual occurrence for the usually strong-willed Mawile.

Pausanius nodded his head with a sly grin.

It was one thing for Ryoshi to leave behind his tunic, sword, and newly obtained Shifting Scale, but...he didn't want to remove his helm, for his own reasons.

He threw the other miscellaneous items to the ground before shouting, "I don't believe you!" He then charged at the wall with the pedestals, only to hit something that wasn't there and landing on his behind. Unfortunately, it seemed to be true...

"Promise me...you won't say anything?" Ryoshi gave Amy a pitiful glance.

She blinked. "Y—yeah, I wasn't going to..."

Amy was surprised at Ryoshi's turn of behavior. It was clear that he preferred to keep his helmet on...for whatever reasons she couldn't fathom. But those pleading eyes made her suddenly feel that even that small reassurance wouldn't be enough. She had to do something to make him feel better.

Then she got an idea. "Um, Ryoshi...? I don't know if this'll help you out, but...we could try taking off both our accessories at once."

Upon catching Pausanius' smug smile in the corner of her eye, she glared and shouted at him, "HEY! STOP STARING!" in Hyper Voice.

The impact (which he dodged again) was nevertheless enough to make him obey and turn around, away from them.

"Freaking..." She barely managed to hold her tongue. Even if he was a bit of a jerk, this was the king of Artiphron, and they were now in his territory. It irked her, but she knew there would be even worse trouble if she didn't control herself.

Then she turned to Ryoshi. "So...would that help?"

"I... suppose so." Ryoshi dropped his head with a sigh. "Okay, on three then... One... two... three."

Ryoshi slowly pulled the helmet off his head, and girly strands of black flowing hair fell down with the metal head lid.

At the same time, Amy looked down to focus on her efforts to pull her bow off without causing too much pain due to how tightly she remembered gluing it on. She did the same for the feathers next to her left ear before covering her mouth (just in case) and looking up, wondering what Ryoshi was so concerned about.

Her eyes widened. Hair? Wait, Mawile don't have hair...do they? It shone even more beautifully and was even straighter and better kept than her own little tuft of hair that almost fell between her eyes. But beyond the hair that glistened enough to make her jealous...

She gave him a questioning look, and before she could stop herself, she said, "I don't see what the problem is..." before remembering what she promised and promptly covering her mouth again.

"It's...I don't know, my hair's really girly. Nothing like what a warrior's head should sport. I've tried cutting it before, but every pair of scissors I've tried to clip with either broke or couldn't make a dent. Like the strands are made out of steel fibers or something..." Ryoshi was pretty frustrated and slightly flustered.

With a deep sigh, he gave up and stared sadly at the ground. "Sorry, but I just...dislike being called a girl. It's why I always wear my helm in public, so people don't have an excuse to poke fun."

"What...?" Amy was surprised. "Whoever said you look like a—?"

But then she stopped herself and patted his arm, trying to make him feel better, just like he'd do for her sometimes. "I—I'd never call you that! You don't even look like a girl to me! And you know what's more? You could probably figure this out, but in my tribe, being called a girl is, like, the best compliment ever. Everyone wanted to be called that. It was, like, the pinnacle of strength and awesomeness and all that. But...I can see your point. I myself wouldn't like being called a boy...in fact, I HATE being called a boy..."

Before she knew it, memories of such a thing came to the surface, and a tear welled up in her eye and dropped before she had a chance to stop it and attempt to rub it off.

"Maybe it was a compliment back in your home, but in most places, calling a boy a girl is an insult...like calling him weaker." Even though he was sad, something about hearing that Amy had similar problems made him feel less alone. "If it's any consolation, I don't even know what a boy Jigglypuff would be like."

Amy smiled, and even laughed a bit. "Yeah, well, just for future reference, they have darker skin, blue eyes, and aren't even close to looking like me, that's for sure." She sighed. "I guess it's always something somewhere."

Meanwhile, a certain Absol with his back turned seemed to growl in impatience. "Are you two finished with your drama yet? Because there's one other thing that I need to tell you. It's about what kind of obstacles are in the mazes you are teleported to when you choose one of the three items."

As he turned around, Amy shouted, "I SAID DON'T LOOK!" in his general direction while bouncing up and latching onto Ryoshi’s head, trying to cover his hair from the view of the cheeky Absol.

Amy's jumping managed to make a slight smile break back over Ryoshi's face, and a blush to spread. He didn't expect the Jigglypuff to go to such measures to protect his feelings, but it was rather sweet that she was.

Pausanius groaned again as he appeared to speak into empty air away from the apparently-skittish Jigglypuff and Mawile. "Anyway, so you see those three items in front of you? As soon as you touch one of them, you will be teleported into a maze with different challenges, and you can only bring that item and that item only in there. The dagger will take you to a chamber full of obstacles and enemies that test your physical prowess; the rope to a maze full of challenging puzzles for you to solve in order to get through, and the quill will require that you solve brain-teasing riddles in order to get through. However, they will all end up at the same destination, where the Minotaurus lives. Choose carefully!"

Amy proceeded to walk up to the room and stopped just before the mysterious barrier that Ryoshi had crashed into just a few minutes ago. She carefully held out an arm, and found that, yup, she was allowed through. And so was Ryoshi now, for that matter. Looked like that ruling about no items was strict after all.

The Jigglypuff then turned to the items on the three glowing pedestals and thought hard. Despite all the time she spent in the wilderness, she never was too thrilled of physical challenges, and she was one of the dumbest in her tribe when it came to riddles, always answering it with '42' or some lame answer that wasn't even close to the true one. But puzzles? Oh boy oh boy, she loved solving puzzles! It was one of her many hobbies back during a happier time, before she ever had to worry about this Vision Quest stuff...

"So what do you think, Ryoshi?" she asked as she heard him come up to examine the items, too. "I'm thinking about trying out the rope puzzles."

"Well, the obvious choice for me would be the dagger..." Ryoshi responded, pointing at the small rusty blade. "I may not be the greatest mind, but I am a warrior after all. Dagger seems to be the best choice for me."

He turned to Amy with an awkward frown. "But I worry what might happen if we split up... I don't want you to get hurt while I can't help you, but I'm not sure how smart it is for us to force the other into a challenge they aren't good at."

"Hmmm..." Amy was conflicted once again. "You have a point. And besides, Ddn't we have to choose the same thi—?"

"Actually, you do not!" called Pausanius, still facing the other direction. "I said all paths lead to the Minotauros, did I not? So long as you two touch your preferred items at the exact same time, I see no problem with it. In fact, if may make a recommendation, I would have you both play to your strengths despite the split up, as teams of two who have done this approach tend to have better success ratios, as they avoid what they are bad at and then get to team up to take on the Minotauros at the end. Though I cannot say for sure what your paths will be like, given how Uxie's magic itself makes the maze completely different for each person. At any rate, good luck, you two, and I shall await your return!" He chuckled. “And do remember to bring back the Crest of Wisdom; otherwise, you’d have to do the whole thing all over again!”

"Oh...well, what he said, then." Amy shrugged and laughed before facing the rope and gulping. Holy cow. This was it. They were totally going to do this Trial of Wisdom thing. "On three, we grab these items, okay?"

"Right. Okay, ready?" Ryoshi was keeping his voice calm so that Amy wouldn't realize how much the unknown challenge unnerved him, but he couldn't keep his hand from quivering.

"Ready!"

"1... 2... 3!"

As soon as their hands touched their respective chosen items, they were engulfed in a bright white light that momentarily blinded their vision. And in the next second, they were gone...

Teleported to inside the Labyrinth, where they would take the challenge to earn the right to stay in the new kingdom they call home. Either to succeed and live, or fail and die.

AMY'S TRIAL >>>

RYOSHI'S TRIAL >>>

---

This is a prose-with-picture collab for Mission 1 of #Pokemon-of-Avalon.

Featuring *Amy-the-Jigglypuff's Amy Apirana the Jigglypuff and =ChicoChikorita's Ryoshi Sumiura the Mawile: 



Table of Contents for Amy Apirana: fav.me/d61kc40

*Amy-the-Jigglypuff's comments:

Haha, yup! Just as a disclaimer, the Labyrinth technically allows you bring in stuff that you wear (as well as one scale of your choice) and only forbids stuff you carry, like weapons. But Cecil and I decided that it would be more dramatic if the Labyrinth forced Amy and Ryoshi to leave everything behind. It reveals character depth, provides a greater challenge for them, AND contributes to the theme of the story, about how this very trial will push them out of their comfort zones like heck. Look forward to how it turns out!

_{And yes, I am aware that the picture doesn't exactly match what move Amy uses on Pausanius. I thought depicting her with Mega Kick would be more dramatic.}

=ChicoChikorita's Comments:

Don't really know if this counts as a big step in character development, but this is pretty much why Ryoshi's helm doesn't ever come off. Actually, it's entirely the reason. And it's also why Ryoshi dislikes being called a girl. And you can say that brown stuff on top of Mawile's head isn't hair all you want, that's just how I see it. (Just like how I see the bottom of the yellow as baggy pants on males or a dress for females.) Amy actually came up with the thought of Mawile's hair being like steel wool or something, which I quite liked. (Also explains why Ryoshi doesn't just go get a haircut...) For part 4, Ryoshi and Amy will be doing seperate trials before reuniting for the finale, so you'll have to watch out for stuff from both of us!

Story by both of us!
Art by *Amy-the-Jigglypuff, unless otherwise specified.

Pausanius the Absol is an official NPC belonging to #Pokemon-of-Avalon.

Word count for this part: 2,120 words = 2,100 Cressents.